From the memo detailing the right to assassinate U.S. citizens worldwide to the paper negotiating the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, the U.S. government has kept many documents classified for dubious reasons. David Wallechinsky of AllGov looks at 11 of them.

In 1962, nuclear war with the Soviet Union was avoided by Khrushchev’s willingness to accept that the U.S. effectively owns the world by right and may deploy massive offensive force against those who even think of deterring the benign global hegemon. But we can hardly count on such sanity forever.

This weekend marked the 50th anniversary of Cuba’s defeat of a CIA-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs, and the communist nation remembered the occasion with a parade Saturday celebrating the bloody nose it delivered to its powerful neighbor.

The iconic author and historian speaks with Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer about his recent tour of Cuba, why he thinks the island has a bright future and why the United States, the world’s only superpower, has an inferiority complex.

...weren’t the liberals it attacked but the conservatives who believed it,” writes Nicholas Kristof at the N.Y. Times. “Be very wary of Mr. Bush’s effort to tame the press. Watchdogs can be mean, dumb and obnoxious, but it would be even more dangerous to trade them in for lap dogs.”